Posted
by
Soulskill
on Sunday March 11, 2012 @11:53PM
from the rest-in-peace dept.

Dr Herbert West writes:
"According to io9, 'Today is an incredibly sad day for fans of comic books, concept art, and downright anything science fiction. Artist Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, who provided some of the most stunning scifi and fantasy art ever to grace a page, has succumbed to illness at the age of 73.' It's pretty hard to overstate the impact he had on film, comic books, and illustration in general. You can name most any fantasy or science fiction related piece of culture from the last 30 or 40 years, and chances are he provided concept art for it or was involved in some way. Alien, Dune, Heavy Metal, Tron (original AND the new one), The Abyss, Masters of the Universe, The Fifth Element, Willow... the list goes on. With the recent passing of Ralph McQuarrie, it's been a tough week for scifi and fantasy artists."

Regardless, it is pretty clear that many culture and social icons are entering their later years. There isnt two weeks that go by that someone of some significance has passed in the last half year I think.

"Sur l'etoile" was a sci-fi comic book he wrote for Citroen in 1983, but more than just a branding operation and a little gift meant for Citroen employees, it was a very beautiful and poetic piece of work.

Wasn't there also supposed to be a Dune movie with his participation and Jodorowsky's?

He was also famous for Lieutenant Blueberry, his western series he signed under his real name, Jean Giraud.

Really, you think if something is (barely) more than 24 hours old it's not worth posting? If slashdot hadn't posted this article i never even would have heard of the guy, so it definitely counts as news for me.

Moebius was also very much responsible for the look and atmosphere of the original ALIEN film. Of course, everybody remembers H.R. Geiger's contribution of the Alien and it's discovery. But the whole human world was Moebius and Ron Cobb. Cobb is a genius in his own right, but it's clear how much O'Bannon plied him with work Giraud had done for the pre-production of the geat, unmade DUNE.

I think that's supposed to be the Lady Jessica in the sketch of "Feyd from Dune." Feyd was the Sting character; Moebius drew a leggy Veronica Lake-ish blond gal seated on a throne, holding a huge sword. Don't recall Feyd wearing anything gossamer in the film.

Ever since the late 70's when I first saw a copy of "Metal Hurlant" SciFi comic book art has been one of my passions and the name "Moebious" was one of the first I learnt and whose fabulously expressive work I obsessed over. The incredible number of artists he inspired across the world is amazing, from comic/manga artists like Shir Masamune to film makers such as Ridley Scott to authors such as William Gibson. Some years ago I looked across my book cases, upper shelves crammed with works of modern science fiction spanning various genres, lower shelves stacked with western and asian comic art books, and even a couple of shelves of DVDs and I realised a great many of these works are either directly, or with only one degree of separation, influenced by Moebious's work.

yeh been there done that a couple of years ago (though my preferred liquid painkiller is a good rum or a premium Irish or Bourbon ) . Fortunately this was "only just" a broken tooth that needed extraction.
and damn slashdot for not allowing you to edit your own posts (though I understand the reason)

His "Airtight Garage" was the basis for the fantastic architecture of the San Francisco Sony Metreon's original game arcade. (Unfortunately, after years of deterioration and changes in ownership, the Metreon has been torn out and replaced with a Target store.)

His "Airtight Garage" was the basis for the fantastic architecture of the San Francisco Sony Metreon's original game arcade. (Unfortunately, after years of deterioration and changes in ownership, the Metreon has been torn out and replaced with a Target store.)

Jean Giraud was a major reason I stayed with science fiction through my teen years, instead of sacrificing it to peer pressure. The french scifi artists (Moebius, Forrest, Druillet et al) raised so many more posibilities - an alternative view of science fiction. It kept me going when all I was finding was mundane empowerment fare (let's face it - Heinlein was recreating Lot's lot at the time with Lazarus Long).Then the elder brother of a mate showed me this magazine called 'Heavy Metal'... Oh dear... Through Arzarch and The Incal and the Gardens of Aedena, falling off a horse with Lieutenant Blueberry and of course travelling on a train with Jerry Cornelius, he has delighted me with his simplified style. I applaud him and express gratitude at his effort! Merci beaucoup monsieur Gir. I expect this to be a Bakelite trick.

Who's Forrest? Do you mean Jean-Claude Forest? Now that's a hidden treasure. I always had the impression he was completely forgotton apart from Barbarella - which again was known only because of the movie.

I wonder what a child psychologist would have to say about that:) Possibly that your parents should pay more attention to what books they leave lying about. The graphics were by Gillon, which could explain the darkish atmosphere of the book. Masterful artist though. He also draws on a very large format. I've seen originals of his and an original page is about 1m high.

Forest is(was) usually more frivolous in style. Liked to put in a lot of conversation too. Wordy son of a bitch:) Most of it is only availab

I've always thought French science fiction had a peculiar visual aesthetic, but I'm not an expert on it. I mean, I may be basing that idea mainly on The Fifth Element and Another World [wikipedia.org], but... nice to see I'm not the only person to have thought so.

I wouldn't call Moebius representative of french SF comics but maybe it's easier to see the common elements from a distance. There could be a strong sense of visual esthetic in french comics. Or spanish. Italian. Belgian.

To me Moebius feels rather unique. I'm no fan of mysticism but I appreciate Moebius's spirituality, in an ambiguous way:It feels good, and that is valuable, even though I don't take the philosophy behind it seriously from an intellectual point of view.

Moebius started with Major Fatal(Le Garage Hermetique). It was an experiment in freewheeling on intuition.There's no coherent story or style, just playing around and making things that look like a story. Sometimes funny, sometimes just beautiful.http://5.asset [asset.soup.io]

Here's a 1-hour documentary on Vimeo; I've watched most of about half of it so far - even multi-tasking while doing so, it's pretty interesting. So many remembered images from my collection of Heavy Metal magazines!